From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Dec 8 20:05:00 1995 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id UAA20779 for questions-outgoing; Fri, 8 Dec 1995 20:05:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from onyx.southwind.net (root@onyx.southwind.net [204.95.83.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id UAA20770 for ; Fri, 8 Dec 1995 20:04:56 -0800 (PST) Received: (from Ucomplet@localhost) by onyx.southwind.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) with UUCP id VAA08376 for questions@freebsd.org; Fri, 8 Dec 1995 21:40:29 -0600 Received: from complete.org (complete.org [127.0.0.1]) by complete.org (8.7.2/8.7.2) with SMTP id QAA01033 for ; Thu, 7 Dec 1995 16:54:56 -0600 (CST) Message-Id: <199512072254.QAA01033@complete.org> X-Authentication-Warning: complete.org: Host complete.org [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol X-Mailer: exmh version 1.6.4 10/10/95 To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ****HELP***** In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 06 Dec 1995 16:20:09 MST." <199512062320.QAA19749@intele.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Thu, 07 Dec 1995 16:54:53 -0600 From: John Goerzen Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk > Obviously not very experienced with UNIX. If any of the programs > you are attempting to overwrite happen to be running, you won't be > able to open them for writing, even as root. You'll obtain EBUSY Why would they be running if you boot of the install floppy? > (text file busy). What you have to do is unlink the file (it won't > really be reclaimed until closed, i.e. the program exits) and then > create the new file with the same name. This, of course, leaves > you with a small window of vulnerability where /bin/sh (and so > forth) does not exist! It also has the side effect of fragging > your disk badly. This is one of the many reasons most UNIX updates > are done off-line, in single user mode, or booted from an alternate > kernel ala Sun's miniroot. It would seem to me that to overwrite a file _should_ make the change in-place, that is, without having to delete, recreate, etc. At least, that's what DOS and OS/2 do, and I wonder why FreeBSD would be worse? -- John -- John Goerzen, programmer and owner | MICRO$oft only exists because some Communications Centre & Complete BBS | people are too dumb to get something E-mail jgoerzen@complete.org | better, such as FreeBSD.